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Augustine echoes Tobit's prayer about punishment and mercy in Confessions 3 to interpret God's discipline as care for him, even while he resisted God and pursued his own desires.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Tobit 13:2
Deuterocanon
1 Then Tobit said: "Blessed be God who lives forever, because his kingdom lasts throughout all ages. 2 For he afflicts, and he shows mercy; he leads down to Hades in the lowest regions of the earth, and he brings up from the great abyss, and there is nothing that can escape his hand. 3 Acknowledge him before the nations, O children of Israel; for he has scattered you among them. 4 He has shown you his greatness even there. Exalt him in the presence of every living being, because he is our Lord and he is our God; he is our Father and he is God forever. 5 He will afflict you for your iniquities, but he will again show mercy on all of you. He will gather you from all the nations among whom you have been scattered. 6 If you turn to him with all your heart and with all your soul, to do what is true before him, then he will turn to you and will no longer hide his face from you. So now see what he has done for you; acknowledge him at the top of your voice. Bless the Lord of righteousness, and exalt the King of the ages. In the land of my exile I acknowledge him, and show his power and majesty to a nation of sinners: "Turn back, you sinners, and do what is right before him; perhaps he may look with favor upon you and show you mercy.'
Augustine, Confessions 3.3
Early Christian
And still your faithful mercy hovered over me from afar. In what unseemly iniquities did I wear myself out, following a sacrilegious curiosity, which, having deserted you, then began to drag me down into the treacherous abyss, into the beguiling obedience of devils, to whom I made offerings of my wicked deeds. And still in all this you did not fail to scourge me. I dared, even while your solemn rites were being celebrated inside the walls of your church, to desire and to plan a project which merited death as its fruit. For this you chastised me with grievous punishments, but nothing in comparison with my fault, O you my greatest mercy, my God, my refuge from those terrible dangers in which I wandered with stiff neck, receding farther from you, loving my own ways and not yours—loving a vagrant liberty!
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Notes and References
“... Conybeare (2016:59) notes: ‘The entire prayer of Tobit 13 is
in fact of immense importance for the themes of the
Confessions’. O’Donnell (1992b:6–7) demonstrates that
Tobit 13 was important for the Confessiones not only
because of allusions to its content, but even its structure,
which O’Donnell clearly sets out. Tobit 12:7, after all, has
Raphael say that it is important to reveal and confess the
works of God, which is the major impetus of the
Confessiones. O’Donnell (1992b:6–7) notes several allusions
to Tobit 13 in Confessiones 1.1.1, 1.2.2, 1.16.26, 2.2.4, 2.3.6,
2.6.14, 2.9.18, 3.3.5, 4.15.24, 7.21.27, 8.5.12, 8.6.14, 10.2.2,
10.6.8, 12.16.23, 13.38.53 and so on. ...”
de Wet, Chris L.
The Book of Tobit in Early Christianity: Greek and Latin Interpretations from the 2nd to the 5th Century CE
(p. 9) HTS Teologiese Studies Vol. 76, No. 4, 2020
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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